Spontaneous Crafting For my race-car crazy little dude

A couple of years ago, my nephew went through a major NASCAR phase. He would only play with toy cars that had numbers on them, he knew every car/driver/sponsor, and my sister was DVRing races so he could watch them on demand.

I relentlessly teased my sister. We are so not NASCAR folks, and it was hilarious to see her spouting off about Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and the like.

I should have known that would come around to bite me in the ass. Now it's my son's turn to be obsessed with all things NASCAR. He's the one refusing to touch a car that is without numbers. He's the one asking to watch races on tv 24/7, and I'm the one who knows who Jeff Gordan is and what number his car is (24, if you care.)

It came as no surprise, then, that my son requested all the tracks be removed from our playroom train table so he could use it as a race track. For months, he's been gliding his cars over the faux landscape that adorns the train table pretending it's a race track. Finally, I gave in and offered to pop the panels out, flip them over and transform them into a true race track.

Earlier this week (before my guts got wrecked by some mystery illness) we had a sunny afternoon with no plans. The kids were restless, and I knew I wouldn't be getting any work done. I finally threw my hands up and said, "We're moving things out side." On the spur of the moment, I dug out my acrylic craft paints, lugged the panels outside to the backyard, and declared the race track transformation would be completed that night. It was a little ambitious, but armed with my disdain for perfection, I set to work.

I didn't sand (couldn't find the sandpaper), didn't prime (didn't have any primer) and didn't have much of a plan. I grabbed the kids' little table off the porch, flipped it upside down on top of the panels and used the circle as the template for the track. Other than that, I just winged it. I knew if it came out truly hideous I could always just flip the panels back over.

I was actually able to get it mostly done by dinner, and finished the rest after the kids were in bed. When Ben came downstairs the next morning, he was so stoked about the table I could hardly get him to stand still so I could take his picture. Since then, if he's awake and in the house, he's playing on the track. He hasn't commented on the total inconsistency in the size, length and placement of the road marks. He doesn't seem to care that the Piston Cup I painted in the "middle" of the table is completely off center (and not in a cool, graphic way) and
he hasn't complained that there isn't an actual "start" line.

Spontaneous crafting is such a blast. Going in to a project with no plan can often leave you truly, pleasantly surprised with the end result. Sure, it's not the way to go on every project, but sometimes you just need to jump on to an idea and run with it. How many projects have you thought about, but not started because you haven't been able to "plan" them accordingly?

What could you get done by dinner tonight?